SEASON is proud to present a solo show of acrylic paintings by Calvin Ross Carl. Opening reception is free and open to the public on Sunday, July 16, 2-5 pm. The show will continue to September 30, hours will be by appointment only.

One step and a pause. One foot slowly and carefully placed in front of the other. The audience below doesn’t fully believe how self-possessed you are, they see the tension in every step, they almost want you to fall. The rope below you bounces, you slide your foot a bit forward and shift your weight. Each step fulfilling a a picture of grace and levity while masquerading your interior apprehension.

Calvin Ross Carl is an artist, designer and former co-director of Carl & Sloan Contemporary in Portland, OR. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Intermedia in 2008 from Pacific Northwest College of Art. He most recently was included in the Portland 2016 Biennial, curated by Michelle Grabner, Out of Sight 2016: A Survey of Contemporary Art in Seattle, WA, and a survey of Northwest abstract painters at The Marylhurst University Art Gym. Carl has exhibited at LVL3 Gallery, Chicago, IL; Cerritos College, Los Angeles, CA; Ditch Projects, Eugene, OR; Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX; and Clark College Archer Gallery, Vancouver, WA.

After her recent residency at the Museum of Glass, multi-media artist Ann Gardner has returned to her roots. Inspired by the large amount of time she spends in the water, she sought to create bubble like forms. They are intentionally imperfect, as is nature, and created with breath, another element essential to sustaining life. These hanging forms remind her of the purity and simplicity she finds in glass, and the effortlessness way the medium helps her to express herself.

Through her mosaic works, Gardner is able to express the complexity of light and the way in which it interacts with glass and the environment. Her panels flicker and seem to move with you. Each sculpture will transform itself depending on the location and time of day. Light becomes an integral and essential aspect of the works.

Continuing her expression of the natural world around her, Gardner has captured the freedom of organic forms in bronze, a combination of natural elements itself. Her textured, delicate vine-like forms coil in and out of each other, as if they are resting in the midst of their growth. With bronze she is able to provide permanence to the creations she witnesses daily in her surrounding landscapes.

Ann Gardner has won numerous awards, and her work is included in numerous major collections, including the National Museum of American Art, the American Craft Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Racine Art Museum, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, and the Seattle Art Museum.

Infinity is a difficult concept to grasp, but it is easy to contemplate when you step inside one of artist Yayoi Kusama’s iconic Infinity Mirror Rooms in the new exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors. This major exhibition examines the contemporary Japanese artist’s significant 65-year career and contextualizes the notion of infinite expansion and accumulation in her work, culminating in her visually stunning Infinity Mirror Rooms. Visitors can immerse themselves in five of these kaleidoscopic environments where the viewer is endlessly reflected within fantastic landscapes—alongside examples from the artist’s beginnings: her mesmerizing and intimate drawings, her early Infinity Net paintings which grow on a canvas like cell formations, and her surreal sculptural objects covered with strange growth formations. These key works join more than 90 works on view, including large and vibrant paintings, sculpture, works on paper, as well as rare archival materials.
The 87-year-old artist continues to work at a brisk pace in her Tokyo studio. The exhibition features the North American debut of numerous new works. Her most recent painting series, My Eternal Soul (2009–present), may be the greatest surprise. Exuberant in color and paired with sculptures that bear titles such as My Adolescence in Bloom, they mark a striking progression in the use of Kusama’s signature symbol of the polka dot. Also in the US for the first time is the recently realized Infinity Mirror Room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, a field of yellow, dotted pumpkins spreading into infinity.
The 1960s were a crucial time for Kusama’s creative development. She was invited to show with the German Zero group, which had an interest in participatory installations. She embraced performance in her photographic documentation and began producing films and staging Anatomic Explosions, collective happenings in New York City where she took up residence in the late 1950s. Central to the exhibition is a recreation of Kusama’s original 1965, Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field, in which she displays a vast field of polka-dot covered, white tubers in a room lined with mirrors. This room merges Kusama’s Accumulations, which had previously existed as sculptural objects, into the illusion of an infinite space.

In a radical move that connects to participatory art, Kusama created The Obliteration Room in 2002. Kusama provides a white domestic interior of sofas, tables, chairs, and everyday objects and visitors are invited to complete the work. Kusama’s concept of obliteration finds new expression as the pristine white room is gradually covered in an accumulation of brightly colored dots, with the intention that the installation will transform during the run of the exhibition.
In addition to the paintings, sculptures, drawings, and environments, viewers will encounter posters, letters, cards, and invitations that relate to Kusama’s early exhibitions and events—including her first solo show which took place in Seattle—a slideshow of Kusama’s performances as well as a video interview with the artist filmed on the occasion of this exhibition.
The exhibition was organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, where the exhibition premiered, and was curated by Mika Yoshitake. The exhibition will be on view at the Seattle Art Museum June 30–September 10, 2017, before traveling to other major museums in the United States and Canada, including The Broad in Los Angeles (October 2017–January 2018), the Art Gallery of Ontario (March–May 2018), the Cleveland Museum of Art (July–September 2018), and the High Museum of Art (November 2018-February 2019).